Accused killer Guy Turcotte back in jail after verdict is overturned (archive)

Editor's note: This story was originally published Nov. 13, 2013* in The Gazette and on montrealgazette.com.

MONTREAL - Two years after being found not criminally responsible for his children's death, and almost one year after being released from a mental hospital, former cardiologist Guy Turcotte is headed back to prison.

The Quebec Court of Appeal has overturned the jury's verdict and ordered a new trial for Turcotte in the stabbing deaths of his two children.

A new warrant was issued for Turcotte's arrest shortly after the Quebec Court of Appeal released its decision, said Jean-Pascal Boucher, a spokesperson for the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP), the provincial prosecutor's bureau.

The new warrant charges Turcotte with two counts of first-degree murder. Wednesday night, the Sûreté du Québec confirmed that Turcotte turned himself in and he will be arraigned in a St-Jérôme court on Thursday.

Turcotte was charged with first-degree murder in the 2009 slayings of his children while in the throes of a messy split from his wife, Isabelle Gaston, an emergency room doctor.

Turcotte will have to wait until his case is transferred to Superior Court before he can request a bail hearing. Unlike in most criminal cases, the onus is on a person accused of murder to prove they merit a release while their case is pending. It often takes weeks for a case to be transferred to Superior Court.

Turcotte never denied he stabbed Olivier, 5, and Anne-Sophie, 3, repeatedly in their beds in the Laurentian town of Piedmont after drinking windshield washer fluid in an attempt at suicide, but his lawyer successfully argued he was too impaired to appreciate his actions.

After a gruelling and emotional trial in 2011, a jury agreed and found him not criminally responsible for his actions.

The verdict out of St-Jérôme shocked Quebec - as did the release of Turcotte from a psychiatric hospital after a mental health review board deemed him to be no longer a danger to society.

The verdict was among those that led the federal government to undertake a reform of the criminal code provisions governing criminal responsibility. The Crown appealed, asking the court to reconsider whether the judge properly instructed the jury on interpreting Turcotte's ability to understand his own actions.

While recognizing that the trial judge, Quebec Superior Court Justice Marc David, faced a difficult task, the appeal court found that his instructions were faulty.

"The Crown did not always help, by making its point in a sometimes confused manner. Nevertheless, the instructions were deficient on a major point and as a result likely had a significant impact on the verdict, which could have been much different."

The children's mother said she's in shock since hearing the news of the new trial. Gaston said she will likely attend Turcotte's second trial because she needs to be there for her children.

"I have a duty as a mother to be there," she said. "This is just the first step."

Boucher also said that René Verret, a prosecutor from Quebec City, has been assigned to take on the Turcotte case. "It's really common to ask a new prosecutor to proceed when the Court of Appeal orders a new trial. It ensures that it will be done with all the perspective we need."

Boucher thanked all of the prosecutors who were involved in the case, both during the trial and in the appeal.

He would not comment on how the Court of Appeal decision mentioned that arguments made by prosecutor Claudia Carbonneau during the trial might have contributed to the judge's confusion. Turcotte's lawyer, Pierre Poupart, could not be reached for comment.